


Falling Free

by undercovercaptain



Series: Some Let Go and Some hold On [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Battle of Blackwater AU, F/M, Former ladies I should say..., OCs are Selyse's ladies, Part 2, Rating May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2020-01-14 16:58:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18480478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/undercovercaptain/pseuds/undercovercaptain
Summary: I have walked the steepest mountains, sailed the seven seasI have been looking for you in every part of me– 'Falling Free,' EivørPart 2 of my Blackwater AU, following on from the events of In The Dark. After hearing the news of the Red Wedding, Sansa finds herself overcome with grief and suddenly even more reliant upon the protection offered to her by one Stannis Baratheon.





	1. The Dark Opening Wide

**Author's Note:**

> So since the show is back so am I with this story! 
> 
> (Disclaimer: Don't own anything, special indebtedness to asoiaf and GRRM)

She doubted whether he had meant to stay this long, resting together on her bed, in her darkened chamber with its fire burned down to just flickering embers. Sleep had overtaken them both. The drowsiness of nightfall, so sweet, so heavy, had begun to flow through her limbs; and little by little, like a hundred grains of sand, her consciousness, her grief, filtered down into the abyss of her sleep-world until oblivion had once more filled it full. But that peace didn’t last. Soon the sobs came rising up and out of her once more: a thin, tight wail, startling her awake, making her throat close up, clogged with heartache at the remembrance that _yes, Mother and Robb are dead. They are dead—headless, bloodless, dead in the river._

            She could feel Stannis’ eyes peering through the darkness at her, his head placed a little distance behind hers, listening. She was curled up on her side, away from him, though when she’d fallen asleep she remembered being in his arms. For a moment, her cries stopped, but then they broke out anew. She sounded like a child; a sobbing, frightened little child, she knew. And she hated herself for it. This, perhaps, is how lives are measured: a series of abandonments that we hope beyond reason will eventually be reconciled. _I wish I could go back. I wish I could tell myself not to go—tell Father not to go. Don’t go._ You’re only young once, they say, but doesn’t it go on for a long time? More years than you can bear. The innocence of youth is a bleeding wound without a bandage, a wound that opens with every casual, callous knock of betrayal and disappointed hopes. Experience is the armour.

            She felt the bed shift beneath her, heard its gentle creak as he carefully rose to feel his way towards the dimming coals of the hearth; a dark hollow of dwindling light carved out of black stone. Through watery eyes she turned slightly to watch him take a candle from its bracket and then bend down to kindle the hearth’s flames so he might light its wick. She tried to quieten her cries, inhaling so vehemently it was as if she were trying to suck the tears back into her eyes. She watched him pause before the fire, his tall frame backlit by the growing, flickering light. She realised, watching him like this, that she was scared without understanding why. Not of him, no, but for herself perhaps—now that she had lost sight of any landmark that might have led her someplace happier, to some fragment of what life had been like before.

            The candlelight now danced over the walls and rafters of her bedchamber; Stannis placed a hand around the flame to protect it from draughts, turned and slowly began to walk towards her. She suddenly realised that she was shivering, her elbows tightly tucked to her sides, her hands bunched into fists as though she was about to fight, bare-knuckled.

            “Sansa?”

            She whimpered, unable to speak as fresh tears leaked out from beneath her closed lids, running down the length of her nose and making the bedding beneath her wet. When she opened her eyes to meet his it was like sitting close to a fire that suddenly blazes up, the intensity of those watchful eyes making her breath catch in her chest.

            He came closer. He reached down for the blankets and furs with his spare hand, and started to draw them up over her body, but as he pulled them over her chest, Sansa grabbed hold of his wrist. She opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out. For his part, the King froze at the sudden grip of her cold fingers. He felt so solid beneath her touch, warm from the fire.

            “What were you dreaming of?” he asked after a moment’s silence, his voice still rough from sleep.

            Sansa released him and drew the blankets up about her neck.

            “Home.” Her throat hurt, her head throbbed, her tongue felt so tired; slumped in her mouth like a dead bird, all damp feathers, in between the stones of her teeth. “Just home.” They regarded one another for a moment in the ragged light of the guttering candle. She felt so small beneath his gaze, the way he just stood there, beside the bed, unmoving.

            “Would you like to come down to kitchens with me?” His question took her by surprise. “I think you need something to warm your bones or you’ll be dead by morning.”

            She stared back at him, rising a little ungainly to sit against the pillows, wrapped as she was in several furs. _Never be caught staring at someone. They’ll think you want something from them._ She quickly averted her eyes, lifting a cool hand to wipe away the hot tears from her face. She nodded, still not looking at him directly and moved to slip out of bed, tripping over the furs in her haste. She fell, red faced, into his side. Without delay, he caught her about the waist with his free arm, hauling her up against him with a huff and a frown. Her palms were now pressed flat against the dark leather of his jerkin, having been held in front of her to protect against the fall. _How well I fit in the hollow of his shoulder,_ she mused giddily before sobering and swiftly retracting her face where it had hurtled into his neck. Soon she felt his arm unwind itself and then he was stepping away from her with an awkward cough.

            He stood rigid before her as he waited while she found her slippers, while she searched for her displaced shawl amongst the furs, her movements slow and a little sluggish, still dazed with a mixture sleep and grief. She thought, half-heartedly, that he might offer her his arm but the King did not. Instead he walked purposefully towards her chamber door, lifting the latch before she had even a chance to reach him.

            Into the darkened corridor they walked, his candle illuminating their way, casting long shadows against the looming walls. A few torches held in brackets dotted their walk, but they were spaced far apart so that just as one area of light started to dim it was several steps before you rounded a corner to find the next. They kept silence and she trusted that he knew the way. Her ears soon got used to the sound of their steady footsteps, his feet falling in time with hers, the hush of their quiet breathing. She tried not to watch him as they walked, by her eyes kept being drawn to that sombre face: the sharp line of his jaw, the powdery bruises beneath his eyes, the shadow of his beard against hollow cheeks.

            “This way,” he murmured, glancing at her briefly to catch her stare, before descending down some steps that seemed to appear from nowhere, like a dark cavern in the ground. She thought he might say more, but something in his face had closed off again, and the opportunity passed. _I follow him because what else is there to do? Who else is here that would offer me a moment’s care?_

            The kitchens were pitch black when they reached them; the fire of the ovens and hearth long dead, diminished into nothing. Sansa sat timidly on a stool close to the empty grate, and watched as the King shone light about the room with his candle. Bending at the knees with his back facing her, he placed the candle on the ground to his side and then set about pulling logs and thin sticks from the hearth’s woodstore, stacking them up and snapping in half the tinder. He worked away quietly and diligently, first setting alight a small bed of dried leaves with the candle flame so that the fire caught, beginning to crowd the kindling, and then growing in ferocity to lick up the sides of the heftier logs. Soon the fire was blazing hot against his face, its warmth seeping outwards towards her stool and enclosing her in its heat.

            Still crouched by the fire, the King glanced over his shoulder at her, as if remembering she was there—her presence was so faint in that large, high-ceilinged room, as light as a feather.

            “Are you thirsty?”

            Sansa nodded, and he rose, hands braced against his legs to stand, only to then quickly disappear, candle back in hand, round some hidden corner. When he returned an instant later, he was holding a ceramic jug. He jerked his head in the direction of some hanging pots mounted on a far wall, beside which were several shelves of stacked plates and pewter cups. Wordlessly, she followed his gaze; mouth a little open, a question poised on her lips.

            “Fetch one for me.” She did as he asked, rising to her feet and wrapping her shawl more tightly around her. “A small one, and something to drink from,” he called after her, voice low despite them being the only two there. She heard him set the candle down somewhere, heard the shuffle of his boots and the soft slosh of milk in the jug. It felt good to be doing something, to be helpful, useful somehow. It was a distraction however short it might last.

            When she returned to him, he took the pot from her hands, their fingers brushing briefly, to pour in the milk and then set it on its hook above the flames. His eyes were cast low, the firelight dancing across his face, making his skin look golden. _Gold and black, the colours of House Baratheon,_ she mused, taking a seat on her stool once more, inching it closer so that the wood scraped slightly against the stone-slabbed floor. He didn’t come to sit beside her, but instead pressed a bent arm against the hearth’s mantle and leant into the fire, peering into the flames, watching them flicker.

            “My mother was always loath to let a hearth die, especially when my brothers and I were babes.” She felt him turn to look at her, but Sansa didn’t meet his gaze, suddenly feeling timid in his presence. “She believed that as long as light burned somewhere in the castle, the Stranger couldn’t get in. Not even during the witching hour.”

            She kept quiet, staring at the folds of her shawl bunched in her pale hands. “What do you believe?” she asked eventually.

            He pushed back from the mantle to extend both hands towards the flames. “I think a fire is a useful thing to keep a body warm,” he said.

            She nodded. The fire crackled and flared in front of them. They grew silent again as the milk began to tremble. When he stepped forward to pour it off she joined him, two cups held in her hands. He filled only one, handing it back to her and placing the other, as well as the milk pot, elsewhere. Steaming cup in hand, she sat down again, eyes trained on him once more as he resumed his former stance: so tall even with his body slightly bent, his brow heavy.

            She sipped her milk, feeling the hot liquid fill her stomach and begin to spread its warmth through her body. He looked so calm and quiet standing there, lost in thought. But there were things inside him. _I’ve see them_ ,  _hiding in your eyes._ She wondered if such things, these unspoken complexities, were born into people. If perhaps we cannot alter who we are—if the place we come from dictates the place we will end up. _Am I following a path already laid out for me, or am I making it myself? None of us know our end_ , that is what the King had told her in Aegon’s Garden, but _a woman can move herself._ She tightened her hands about her cup in thought.

            “I didn’t mean to wake you before,” she spoke shyly. She knew her face was puffy from tears and restless sleep, knew she must look every bit the child when he glanced over his shoulder to look at her.

            “I often wake at night, or rather, I don’t sleep at all.” He gaze returned back to the fire. “When Shireen was small and plagued with greyscale, I used to wake in the night to check that she was still breathing.” The flames were now dying in a red glow that spread across his face. Outside a low moan signalled the onset of more sea winds stirring up the dark waters. She could hear it whistling through the chimney, like a plaintive cry.

            “You—you sound like a good father.” Her voice caught in her throat as she spoke, staring down into her cup. She felt a sudden wave of desolation flood over her, gripping hold of her heart and twisting her insides. _Father…why did we ever leave? Why did I put my faith in Cersei and not you?_ Tears relieve grief, but at other times they devour. The choke hold of her sorrow prevented her from realising that to have any kind of a future she had to give up hope of ever changing her past. And yet it was all she could now think about. _What if we had never left? What if Robert had never come? What if…_

            Stannis was talking to her, but she couldn’t hear what he was saying, it was as though they were both underwater. _I am sinking all I have left and going under. If I speak, it will be in bubbles of air._ She could see him now on his knees before her, though she didn't know when he had moved from his place by the fire. He must have noticed that she was digging her fingernails into the flesh of her arm, her cup lying forgotten on the floor, white milk against the grey. He reached over and took up her hands in his own.

            “Sansa? Sansa? I am here. I am with you.” He was looking at her anxiously, like a drowning man trying to catch hold of something to bring him up to the surface. _Where has all the water come from? My eyes are so wet. I don’t think I can breathe._ She exhaled fitfully and gasped in sharply, rocking back in her seat and making her stool creak. As she tilted forward, he reached for her, pulling her body closer to his, down onto the floor, into his arms. _Yes,_ she thought, _yes, hold me please. Someone hold me together, for I am splintering apart._

            That had been several days ago now. Days since she’d seen him, for now all she did was sleep, face down on her pillow. A comfortable dead-man’s float, only remotely disturbed by a chill undertow of reality—murmuring voices, distant footsteps, creaking doors—which threaded fitfully through the shut away darkness of her chambers, through the blood-warm waters of her dreams. Maids would come, pleading in soft tones for her to eat, but she couldn’t do it. _Don’t feed me or I will bite you, I will bite the hand that feeds me._ She could not eat, not when thoughts of her mother and brother still plagued her, their lost bodies with no final home, no burial. Life seemed to her now to be nothing but a constant scattering, a thwarted journey that takes you everywhere without offering you a way home, for there is no home, there is only this cold island and her dark, aching self spread thinly upon it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A dynamic is definitely building...hope you enjoyed this chapter :)
> 
> Reviews, as always, are very much appreciated!
> 
> Cappy x


	2. The Darkness and The Ghost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the lovely comments from the first chapter :) hope you enjoy this slightly longer one! :)
> 
> (Disclaimer: Don't own anything, special indebtedness to asoiaf and GRRM)

He was tired. Tired of inaction. Tired of the word sacrifice being tossed about as the most ready solution. _There is power in king’s blood. Give me this boy._ Tired of the violence that was surely on its way, that was coming, that hadn’t happened yet. Tired of liars. _You are the prince that was promised, the chosen of R’hllor._ Tired of sanctified liars. Tired of perceived destiny, and of this duty that was his to carry alone. _If you fail, the world fails with you._ He was so tired, and yet there was still so much to be done.

            Now was a dead spot in the night, that coldest, blackest time when the world has forgotten evening and dawn is not yet a promise. A time when it is far too early to arise, but so late that going to bed makes small sense. _I sleep like an old woman now,_ he thought to himself as he climbed the stone steps leading up the Chamber of the Painted Table. _In fits and starts. It isn’t sleeping and it isn’t waking and it most certainly isn’t rest._

            In the chamber all was dark; the iron brazier and hearth had both long died out. As he walked across the room, eyes squinting in the darkness, he could hear the wind outside moving, and fainter, the sounds of the sea. Reaching the hearth, he knelt and made a fire, to drive the chill from the round chamber and chase the shadows back into their corners. Still crouched low, he held out his hands, the palms facing the licking flames, before rising to his full height. _I burn, I freeze; I am never warm_. He began to walk around the room to each window in turn, opening the heavy velvet curtains and unlatching the wooden shutters. _I am as hard as these black stones; I forgot softness long ago because it did not serve me._

            The wind came in now, strong with the smell of salt and sea. He leant against the sill of the north window, pausing there for a breath of cold night air. Outside, the sea looked black and empty, though in the day the shore was of shells and small pebbles, and huge tangles of seaweed that floated into the bay, like the hair of the drowned. He liked this solitude; lonely as it was, for it allowed him time to think on the days past, though thinking is not always a comfort. Aye, it is always good, but not always a comfort. _If Joffrey should die…what is the life of one bastard boy against an entire kingdom?_ He had given in, he’d done as she’d bid him and looked into her flames. He couldn’t keep disregarding her, despite his suspicions concerning his wife’s death, and so he had allowed her this one-inch. _When no one else can see, I must see: that is what it means to be a king._

            Edric Storm was an innocent, his birth no fault of his own, his one failing being that perhaps he reminded his kingly uncle a little too much of Robert, but that was all. And yet he could be the best boy who ever drew breath and that might mean nothing if his death guaranteed the survival of so many others. One life. _What is the life of one bastard boy against an entire kingdom?_ His Hand had looked at him then; right in the eyes, and with the softest voice had stabbed him with it. _Everything,_ he had said. _Everything._

            In the darkness of the night the stars were so many and so white they looked like chips of ice, hammered through the fabric of the sky. With a heavy gaze, he traced the constellations across the roof of the world. The precision of it, the quiet orderliness of the stars, gave him a sense of calm. There was nothing he was going through that the stars had not seen before, somewhere, some time on this earth. Given enough time, their memory would close over his life like a healing wound. All would be forgotten, all suffering erased. All forgiven.

            He lowered his gaze from the sky to the castle ramparts; the wings of the stone dragons cast great black shadows in the light from Melisandre’s nightfire. The wind sighed through the chamber, and in the hearth the flames gusted and swirled. Absently, he listened to the logs crackle and spit. _Don’t you ever get tired of believing? Don’t you ever want proof?_

            The Red Woman was absolute in her belief. Her promises, her fiery assertions; she will burn him down like wax if he lets her. Though once it had flattered his vanity: her attention, her touch. And it had felt like his choice, his due, when he went to her, when he took her—his hands grasping her thighs, his lips bruising her skin. Though maybe it hadn’t been that way to begin with. _She must have done something. Slipped some powder or other into my cup._ A chill ran down his spine like the first touch of an icy hand against warm flesh. _Which is worse? To think that with a clear mind I might’ve acted differently? Or, that the choice was always mine? That I would have always acted thus—that I needed so little persuasion?_

            When he left the window, his shadow went before him, tall and thin, falling across the Painted Table like a sword. And there he stood for a long time, waiting until the moon set and the eastern sky began to lighten, the hem of night pulling away, taking the stars with it. He heard their boots on the stone steps as they ascended, and yet he was surprised to see that it was Ser Richard Horpe who accompanied his Hand into the chamber. The lean, grim looking knight with his ravaged face met the eyes of his king directly, straightening under the intensity of his questioning gaze; shoulders pushed back and chin lifting slightly.

            “Sire, I have brought you Ser Richard.” The scarred knight then took a decisive step around Davos to stand before his king.

            “Your Grace, I should like to speak with you on a matter.” A sense of unflinching resolution was clear in Horpe’s hard-eyed stare.

            “Aye, go on then.” Somewhat wearily, Stannis took a seat at the Painted Table, his fingers dabbing at his closed lids. Ser Davos took a step closer to stand to his right, gazing at the other knight with open curiosity. _Seems he is just as ignorant of this as I am._

            “Forgive me for speaking plainly…”

            He waved a hand in dismissal, huffing in exasperation and wishing for Horpe to do away with these unneeded courtesies and get on with things.

            The knight nodded, temporarily averting his gaze before returning it. “It has been several nights since, I must admit, and yet I have found that I cannot, in good conscience, keep what it is I have witnessed solely to myself.”

            Stannis glanced up sharply, piercing the man opposite him with an arrow like stare. “What is it you think you have seen?” he voiced his words carefully. From the corner of his eye he saw Davos shift, tilting his head in silent question.

            “I was on night duty when I saw you, sire. I saw you leaving the Lady Sansa’s chambers at an hour which I believe you had no business being there—”

            “You overstep yourself, ser,” he bit out through clenched teeth. His hands flexed against the arms of his chair and he began to glower unashamedly in the direction of the impetuous knight. _He speaks of the evening I told her of her mother and brother’s death. He speaks of what he cannot possibly understand._

            “Maybe so, but if there has been any ill done by the lady I should like to offer myself as a means of—of avoiding any further dishonour. She is a sweet girl and a lady of a great house. Right must be done by her. I would do that right…if there is a child—”

            “There is no child!” he hissed, interrupting him. Then with an abruptness that startled both Davos and Horpe, he pushed himself back from the Painted Table, his chair scraping harshly against stone floor, so that he could stride over to stand before the knight. “Do you think me so like Robert that I would abandon all sense and honour?” In his eyes burned live coals, through his veins an ocean howled. And yet Horpe held his gaze stoically.

            “Your Grace.” He did not turn to meet his Hand’s gaze, enraged as he was, though if he had he would’ve seen the unabashed dismay on the other man’s face. “The Lady Sansa—”

            “Is a maiden yet, Lord Hand. Aye, he saw me, I’ll admit to that, but that is all. No liberties were taken. I am not the sort of man to take advantage of a mere girl, a grieving, _weeping_ one at that.” He held Horpe’s gaze with his, almost growling out his last words: “You know this. You know your king.”

            “Aye, I do, but this was badly done.” Stannis bristled at the admonishment, his shoulders becoming tense, his brow becoming ever more furrowed and frowning. “If anyone else were to have seen you leaving her chambers…” Davos spoke anxiously, his footfalls sounding hurried as he took several steps closer. “Gods, why were you even there at such an hour?”

            He could not answer his Hand no more than he could truly answer himself. _When have I ever shown a care for a weeping woman?_ Silence now hung about the chamber, though it was a silence full of words, like how a lute retains, in its bowl, the notes it has just played; how a viol, in its strings, can hold a concord; a shrivelled petal holds its scent, a prayer can rattle with curses; an empty place, when the owners have left, can still be loud with their ghosts. She was something to be protected, of that he was certain.

            “I trust that we in this chamber are the only ones who have knowledge of this?” he said eventually, breaking the silence. “You’ve not spoken with the likes of Farring or Suggs?”

            “No, Your Grace,” replied Horpe, his eyes narrowing in offence, his lips tightening into a pressed line, pulling at the scars that marred his face. “There was only myself and I would never do the lady the discourtesy of—”

            “Of spreading slander and falsehoods?” He snapped his gaze back to the knight and glared at him. “Aye, very honourable of you, ser.”

            He could see the man struggling to rein himself in, willing himself not to respond to Stannis’ jibe, his hands clenched at his sides just as his king’s were.

            Ser Davos took a great breath, and began to speak: “As Hand I thank you for the consideration you have shown the lady and hope that you are satisfied in the knowledge that no harm has been done. Aye, it is an offence to the King to suggest as much.” He looked disapprovingly across at the younger man, who had at least the good grace to look slightly reproved. “I trust that you are aware that this conversation must go no further than this chamber, ser?”

            “I do, Lord Hand. My King.” Horpe seemed compliant enough, though Stannis noted he made no attempt at an apology. Instead he bowed slightly, the action seemingly forced, and then the knight made a swift departure from the chamber. Stannis gave him one last derisive look before turning his full attention onto his old friend, who stood steadfast to his side, that plain, brown eyed face still so full of questions. _Do not ask me. I have no answer for you._

            He shook his head slightly; his eyes closing in a sudden wave of weariness as a pained look swept across his face. And then he was striding out of the chamber, without a second thought, just as Horpe had, as though he were a soldier marching to battle. The soles of his boots tramped decisively down the stone steps, through the darkened corridors where the light had died away on their walls, leaving a melancholy purple tint. In due course, light blossomed once more and he found himself walking through an open archway, onto a gargoyled walkway atop the battlements.

            On its eastern side Dragonstone stared out onto the Narrow Sea, its changeful waters seemingly big enough to contain everything any man could ever feel. Silver at dawn, green at noon, dark blue in the evening. Sometimes it looked almost red. Or it would turn the colour of old coins. At present, the shadows of clouds were dragging across it, patches of sunlight touching down everywhere; white strings of gulls dragging over the sky like the beads.

            Turning, he saw her then, a little further down standing before the stone balustrades: tall and silent in her attitude, her countenance marred by weariness and grief. Sansa’s unseeing eyes were fixed upon the waves as they crashed against the rocks below, hoarse with the repetition of their mystery. Every breaker, as it rolled, seemed to bring with it additional sadness. _War is cruelty, and none can make it gentle._

Sorrow and loss never die. Not truly. We can put them away in a chest and lock it tight, but whenever it is opened, even a crack, the aroma of lost sweetness rises to fill our lungs with heaviness. He himself had once thought he might die with grief: for his mother, for his father, lost at sea, dashed against the rocks of Shipbreaker Bay. But pulse, obdurate, keeps its rhythm. You think you cannot keep breathing, but your ribcage has other ideas, rising and falling, emitting sighs. You must thrive in spite of yourself. For if a man does not die of a wound, then it heals in some fashion, and so it is with loss. _I healed, though not completely. A scar is never the same as good flesh, but it stops the bleeding._

            Sansa turned at the sound of his hesitant step, her blue gaze suddenly fixed upon him. A breeze gusted down upon them and he watched, just for a moment, as a strand of red hair came loose from her braid.

            “Forgive me, Lady Stark, you wish to be alone.” He did not see it, but as he spoke the words _Lady Stark_ , Sansa winced as if pained, her brow creasing and lowering until the blue wash of her eyes closed in grief with the sorry realisation that _she_ was Lady Stark now, not her mother. The only Stark. No one else lived who could hold a claim to that name now.

            “No,” she said, shaking her head. “No, I am glad for your company, Your Grace.” She attempted a small smile but soon faltered, her head quickly dipping down so that he would not see the tears slipping free from her tired eyes.

            He disliked tears, he had always disliked tears, had never understood them, and sometimes lost his temper over them; but he felt now that he could not rebuke her. _The pain of her loss is still so fresh._ In the distance, the sea birds soared and hovered; the winds and clouds went forth upon their trackless flight, their white, wispy arms beckoning their onlookers towards some far-flung and invisible land, far away from here. Below them the tides pulled back and forth against the castle walls. And yet all was still and solemn where she stood, like a marble statue tucked away in some hidden grove.

            “You’ll do well if you don’t mire in self-pity. It only gets you more of the same. You mustn’t waste time on it, My Lady.”

She stared back at him, glistening eyes widening fractionally, her intake of breath like a hook, catching him by the throat.

            “Forgive me.” He shifted awkwardly; clenching his jaw and casting his gaze away from her and out to sea. “It is my way, to speak directly. I do not mean to give offense by it.”

            “I understand, Your Grace.” Her voice was quiet, almost inaudible against the rising of the winds, which whipped up the now loose strands of her hair framing her face. “I will—I will try to do better.” He frowned, shaking his head slightly, the dejected tone of her voice suddenly making his chest ache as though a knife had quietly slipped between his ribs.

            The weight of his fingers upon hers was like a bird landing on a branch. It was a drop of a match. He did not see that they were surrounded by tinder until he felt it burst into flames.

            Sansa raised her head to look at him. Instinctively, he took a step nearer, the press of his hand on hers becoming firmer and more sure of itself. But then he abruptly halted, the blood pounding in his veins. He thought to pull away but then she unexpectedly flew up into his arms, wrapping herself around him. Her hoarse breath was loud in his ear over the sound the sea and wind, and her cheek was cool and damp with tears where she pressed it against his a moment later.

            He stood rigid in her embrace, suddenly unable to hold her the way she obviously wished him to. Instead, he found himself pulling away from her, retreating; his eyes averted so as not to see the hurt in her eyes.

            “You should not be roaming the castle alone, My Lady. I suggest you return to your chambers.”

            Without a second glance, he turned his back on her, his pace swift and unrelenting, heading in the direction of the Stone Drum. _I must go_. _I must return to my duties._ Yet he soon found his steps faltering: behind him he could hear the distant ringing of bells. Pausing, he turned and saw his daughter’s motley coloured fool, shambling along the darkened corridor. The fool was alone, and when he saw that Stannis had stopped, he jerked to a sudden halt, still a little distance away, the bells on his antlered tin helmet jangling madly. Hopping from one foot to the other, he started to sing, green and red face cast in shadow:

            “A peach for the prince, sweet sorrow for the maid, for under the water the crowned fishes do lay! Ay, ay, ay!”

            He heard then his daughter’s faint voice, calling Patchface back to her, and with that the fool was gone, shambling back from whence he came.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone loves a creepy Patchface inclusion, right? RIGHT?
> 
> Reviews, as always, are very much appreciated!
> 
> Cappy x


	3. Chasing Stars and Visions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, thank you for all the lovely comments from last chapter :) Here's a new chapter for those of you suffering from the shitshow of GOTs ending...and just s8 in general. Hopefully I've put a bit more thought into this chapter than D&D have into their writing! 
> 
> (Disclaimer: Don't own anything, special indebtedness to asoiaf and GRRM)

She dreamt of them constantly—Robb and her mother—but what she dreamt of was just a reminder of their long and now permanent absence: the distant smell of snow crushed against auburn curls, a shadow moving away against a sun-struck wall, muddied pathways and flapping tent openings where she knew they’d been walking only a moment before but had just vanished. Sometimes she spotted them among the heaving crowds of King’s Landing: her father, sister and younger brothers too, and even the pale, sombre face of Jon Snow; pinprick faces amidst the crush, or down the castle’s lamp-lit corridors. These glimpses of them she treasured, despite the fact that she was never able to catch up with them. _So sweet to see loved ones in the night, however short the time._

            In the depths of her dreams it felt real, as if she were truly seeing them all: Winterfell, her family, the Godswood, everyone and everything. But what she was seeing was truly only a projection: a light beamed from a great distance, shining at her from a dead star. _I remember too much and I can never forget; I am like the air on a calm day as it holds itself still, letting nothing escape._

            Sansa felt so old, sequestered away in her chambers; so awfully old and worn, and so young all at once, raw as a wound. At night, when she couldn’t sleep, half longing and half afraid to see her ghosts, she would imagine that lives were but candle flames, greasy-bright, fluttering in the darkness and the howling wind. Until the footsteps came, awful coming footsteps, coming to blow you out and send your life away in a grey wreath of smoke, vanishing you into the air and into the night. _They will blow us all out, those false knights, false kings, false friends, one by one, until it is only their light by which they see themselves._

            Her nameday had passed, in amidst her grief and seclusion; not known by others and hardly noticed by herself. _Fifteen: a year shy of a woman._ And yet the burdens of a woman had already been forced upon her. Perhaps she was glad of it, for she no longer had the time to fall prey to the whims and fancies of a careless girl, when hours that were her own to spend spread before her like a gift. She was older and, she hoped, wiser. In her clearer moods, it gave her some comfort to think that people only live through pain like this once. And if pain came again, to whatever degree, it would find a tougher surface.

            In her chambers, it could still be late morning, or perhaps early afternoon, she couldn’t tell; an hour or so ago, Sansa had managed to move from her bed to open the window’s draperies, to let in the daylight, though she lacked the will to do anything beyond that simple task. She now turned fitfully in her bed, buried beneath soft furs and woollen blankets. Letting her mind drift, she began to think back to the days past; to the day she had decided to leave her self-imposed solitude. _I had to get out. I had to breathe._

            Aye, it had been a strange impulse, to leave her chambers that morning, to walk along the windswept battlements in her drab blue dress; her face wan and pale. She had walked hurriedly through the castle’s corridors, unwilling to meet anyone’s eye, or respond to their questioning calls and glances. But when she had seen him, had heard the King’s stilted yet sincere words of comfort, the urge to be close to him, and to stay close, had overwhelmed her. With her eyes closed, alone in her chambers, Sansa could almost take herself back to that moment: to dwell in the circuit of air that had held them, to be within the close and burning borders of him once more. _Foolish girl, what were you thinking of?_

            She had sensed his withdrawal from her even before it had truly happened: she had felt the iron beneath his skin, unbending to her touch, as he stood there rigid and cold, whilst she clung to him so fiercely. _I just wanted him to hold me—to not feel so alone and stranded by my grief._ But Stannis had looked like a winter’s night to her then: harsh yet strangely brittle, like trees that are stricken by hoarfrost. And he had spoken to her tersely before parting, as though he was scolding her, as though he was displeased by her presence. Guilt and shame settled low in her belly, like a hard stone, at the true remembrance of it; of how unthinkingly she had handed her grief to him, begging him to take it and hold it, in all its rawness, all its dark confusion. But he could not take it, or would not. Not this time. _As king he has already shown me far more kindness than I could’ve hoped for. I must mind myself better. Mind my thoughts. Mind my pain._

            Outside her chamber window it was starting to rain, very innocently at first, but the sky was packed tight with clouds and gradually the drops grew bigger and heavier, until it seemed to fill the entire room with its leaden beat. The wind sprang up afresh to join it, mingling with it to create a kind of bitter song. Sansa let her mind drift and empty, let her ears fill with the sound of that sombre song, until her body stiffened in alarm at the unexpected creak of her chamber door opening; the noise was swiftly followed by footsteps shuffling in and the rustling of skirts. An easiness and wariness now took hold of her. _Who is there? Maids to make me eat? I can’t. I’ve no appetite._ Feigning sleep, Sansa held still, resisting the urge to make her wakefulness known to her intruders.

            “ _Lissy,”_ a voice hissed, soft and anxious.

            “ _Hush._ ”

            “But—”

            “Don’t be such a worrywart, Nella! Come now, help me find a spot to lay this down, and do tread quietly, Lady Sansa still sleeps.”

            With her eyes screwed shut and her face against the furs, Sansa listened carefully as the two girls crept about her chambers, whispering to one another as they went. She knew they were young, of a similar age to her, from their girlish tones and titters.

            “We shouldn’t linger—Korina might notice us gone soon.”

            “Oh, old sour face can notice all she likes. She’s no queen of mine.”

            There was a pause, a slight lull where all that could be heard was the steady beat of rain against the glass panes. Smoothly, smoothly it fell, across the island washing in its waters, sulking in its ocean.

            “ _Yet.”_ The word was spoken as a low whisper, expelled in one breath as if the speaker wished to rid the thought from her very body.

            “Nell,” her companion’s voice was sharp with reproach; “you know she’s just speaking nonsense; the King will never marry her.”

            “Why would she act as if she were queen already—bossing us about, getting us to darn her stockings—if there wasn’t a grain of truth to the matter?”

            “Because she is a sad old-maid grasping at her last _imagined_ hope of marriage, that’s why.” The one called Lissy let out a tired sigh, then lowered her voice to an almost whisper: “The Florents hold little sway now Selyse is dead and Lord Alester has been burned for treason. She’s a fool to think the King would align himself with them again.”

            Sansa heard the soft rustle of skirts, imagining the two girls moving closer to one another as their voices became more conspiratorial.

            “Duram says that of the lords who remain—Lord Morrigen, the Bastard of Nightsong, Little Lucos—they all say the King would be better off marrying _her_ and without delay.”

            Sansa’s face was a pale blotch, half-hidden by the fur she had drawn about her, but now she abruptly sat up, her hair falling wildly about her, in tangles of red. _They speak of a match between the King and myself. But His Grace had seemed so resistant…and I—I do not know—_

            “My Lady!” squeaked a dark haired girl, whose voice she recognised as the one called Nella. She was small of stature with a round, childlike face dappled with freckles and hair that shone like the smooth surface of a conker. Her blue eyes stared beseechingly at Sansa, before glancing back at her companion, Lissa, as if asking the other girl how to proceed.

            “Please forgive us, My Lady,” the second girl said blushingly, pausing then to regard her for a moment, unsure, perhaps, of how long Sansa had been awake and listening to their conversation. “We did not mean to disturb you.”

            Lissa was taller and fairer than Nella, with pale yellow hair, that was almost white, though her eyes were a dark brown, large and warm. This contrast in colouring made her the more striking of the pair, though they were both pleasant to look at, not just because they were pretty, but because, as Sansa dared to hope, they looked kind as well. _I remember the fairer girl from when I first arrived: she showed me to my chambers. She was one of the Queen’s ladies._

            “Larissa and I only came by so we could give you this.” Nella gave her a little smile, her cheeks dimpling, before stepping forward to retrieve something from atop the wooden chest at the foot of Sansa’s bed. With a proud flourish she held aloft a finely made gown, complete with intricate embroidery that must have taken the two girls several days of sewing to complete.

            Lissa moved to join her, reaching out to smooth her hand across the folds of fabric with a look of prideful satisfaction. She then turned to face Sansa, her expression demurring slightly and her large dark eyes widening with a hint of misgiving: “I hope you don’t think us presumptuous, we just thought—Donella and I—that you must be in need of another dress, and we, having so little to occupy ourselves now the Queen is… Well, we were happy to do it.”

            Sansa smiled sweetly, sincerely touched by their thoughtfulness and the girl’s stuttering apology, surprised by how much she hoped they would stay and continue talking with her. Indeed, over the course of all these solitary days utter loneliness had planted itself within her, and sent its deep roots down into her. _I haven’t truly spoken to anyone in days…not since I saw the King that day on the battlements. Not Shireen, nor Edric…I wonder how they are faring._

            “We thought it might cheer you a little,” added Nella, bringing Sansa out of her thoughts, though she quickly bit her lip, looking reproved and wondering if she misspoke. _She’s afraid to mention my grief. She need not be._

            “It is a silly gesture, we know.” Lissa’s voice was soft and she smiled timidly back at Sansa, apologetic on behalf of her friend. Both girls stood side by side at the foot of the bed, almost shoulder to shoulder, if they’d been of the same height, watching Sansa expectantly. _Can it be that they were truly thinking of me? Is it foolish to trust them so easily? Cersei seemed kind and thoughtful too, at first._

            Remembering her courtesies, Sansa hurried out her thanks, sitting up straighter against the furs and pillows: “No, not at all! Thank you, you are most kind!” She felt herself blush at their pleased smiles, and absentmindedly reached up to smooth her down her wayward hair. _I must look a fright._

            “This part was my idea,” beamed Nella, moving excitedly round to the side of the bed to show Sansa a particular detail. Her slender finger traced along the slivery threads that ran up along the centre of the black overdress, where the fabric parted to reveal the soft grey damask kirtle beneath. “You see, it is like the night’s sky with the sea beneath it.” Her finger brushed across little starbursts and crescent moons that had been picked out in silver and tiny glass beads, mingling with blue threaded waves of cobalt and indigo.

            Sansa’s hand joined Nella’s in gently touching the carefully sewn beadwork and embroidery. “It is beautiful, thank you,” she replied, a tad breathless. _It is like view from the battlements at night—the view from the Stone Drum._ “It must have taken you both an age to finish.”

            Lissa came round to lean against the far bedpost, her hair, which was in too long braids, swung as she moved; the style was girlish, but Sansa suspected that she was still the elder of the pair, a little older than herself perhaps.

            “We enjoyed the work. Time can pass by slowly here, slower still when you’re not a king or a king’s man with duties abound to attend to.” Lissa smiled wanly, but then her face brightened and her true smile returned. “Do you enjoy sewing, Lady Sansa?”

            “I do, very much so.”

            “Oh!” exclaimed Nella excitedly: “We might sew together, the three of us—we tried to persuade Princess Shireen to join us a few days past, but she did not wish to.” She frowned a little, though the look passed quickly.

            “She asked after you, though,” added Lissa softly.

 _I’ve lived my grief; I’ve slept mourning and eaten sorrow, drunk tears. I’ve ignored all else. But just because you forget the world does not mean that the world forgets you._ Sansa looked sadly back at her, unable to think of a reply that might assuage Shireen’s concern. So she remained silent, her eyes drifting downwards to the hands now held limply in her lap; so pale against the dark furs.

            “We usually sew together in the Queen’s old solar, with Lady Korina, her cousin,” continued Lissa, hurrying her words a little to break the quiet that had descended; “No one ever troubles us there, not anymore. But you need not come today, or any day for that matter, should you not wish it.”

            “No, I should like it very much.” Sansa startled herself with the decisiveness of her tone—the strength behind her voice after so many days of feeling nothing but weakness. Small, everyday things can lift us out of despair. But nobody can do it for you. Only you can watch for the open door.

            Lissa and Nella smiled broadly, bobbing their heads happily in unison, making a bubble of laughter escape Sansa’s lips. _I have missed this._ She had missed the close companionship of other women, of young women, of girls. She missed Jeyne Poole, lost like Arya mayhaps, and little Beth Cassel too; how they would walk through the glass gardens after luncheon, smelling the winter roses, singing their songs of summer; and how they would sew together, Arya too, despite all her protests and longings for the training yard. Because to sew is to pray. Men would never understand this, seeing the whole but never the stitches. They don’t see the speech of the creator in the work of the needle. Women mend. Women and girls turn things inside out and set things right. They salvage what they can of human garments and piece the rest into blankets. Sometimes their stitches stutter and slow. Only a woman’s eyes can tell. Other times, the tension in the stitches might be too tight because of tears, but only they know what emotion went into the making. Only women can hear the prayer.

            With the help of the Lissa and Nella, Sansa left her bed and donned her new dress; felt the threads beneath her fingertips, the fall of fabric against her legs, the beaten silver belt snug at her waist, bright against the black and grey. She let herself sit before a window and watch the waning of the rain, as they brushed her hair till it shone, took locks and made her a small crown of braids. She let herself smile as they chatted away, laugh a little at their playful bickering, and blush as they called her beautiful, as they threaded their arms through hers and her led out of her chambers, into the torch-lit corridor.

            There was something strangely endearing in that offer of two firm arms to hold onto. Their support was not wanted physically, yet the sense of that support, the presence of a feminine strength that was outside of herself, and yet also hers, issued forth a tightening within Sansa’s chest which she could not easily explain.

            “Lady Sansa?” A lowborn, but kindly voice called out to her from behind them. _I recognise that voice, though I cannot put a face to it._

            Slipping her arms free of Nella and Lissa’s, Sansa turned to see a slight man with a plain yet weathered face, his beard and hair peppered with grey, with an odd leather pouch hung about his neck.

            “My Lady, I am Ser Davos Seaworth, Hand of the King. Allow me to offer you my condolences for your recent loss—and for your father too.”

            “I—thank you, Ser.” Her eyes barely rested on him before they were darting to the tall figure of the King by his side, stoic and silent. He was not handsome; no man could be who was that unsmiling. And yet Sansa noticed now, perhaps for the first time, that his features had been drawn with a firm hand, nothing awry or untidy, nothing too large—all precise, cut with the sharpest of knives. _He looks like a man of the Night’s Watch, all dressed in black._

            “It is very good to see you, My Lady. How do you fare this morning?”

            Sansa’s pulse was jumping, for no reason she could name. She barely felt the shifting of skirts beside her as her companions dipped into low curtsies, nor heard their murmured _Your Grace_. She barely felt Ser Davos’ expectant gaze upon her face, waiting for the answer to his question; for it was nothing compared to those dark, storm blue eyes staring back at her, with something different in their look, an intensity she did not know. And yet the rest of the King’s face was like a quiet pool that holds everything safe in its depths, its surface revealing nothing.

            “My Lady?”

            Ser Davos’ voice startled her, almost visibly wrenching her out of her reverie. Her mouth felt dry, so much so that she could hear the sound of her throat as she swallowed. _Stannis watches me. As if he is waiting._ Sansa shifted, a miniscule movement, towards the pair. When she spoke, she did not meet Ser Davos’ kindly brown eyes, but instead stared past him, at the King, at Stannis.

            “I am well, thank you.” She could have told him more, of the dreams that left her bleary and bloodshot, the almost-screams that scraped her throat as she swallowed them down. The way the stars turned and turned through the night above her unsleeping eyes. But she didn’t.

            “We will not keep you, Ser.” She smiled at the King’s Hand, though it did not reach her eyes. _Courtesy is a lady’s armour._ Her gaze returned to Stannis, if just for a moment. In his face, she saw the slight tightening of his jaw and lowering of his brow, as well as the still probing look in his eyes. Yet it was all inconsequential to her, due to his lack of words, his silence; a silence that had slid into her, smooth as a polished knife. “ _Your Grace_ ,” she murmured at last, after a beat too long, and then with a scant parting glance, she turned away, Lissa and Nella behind her, to continue their walk towards the Queen’s solar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started writing this chapter before the end of s8, so now I doubly stand by my decision to give Sansa some friends! There's so many people in GRRM's world, and that's part of what makes it feel so rich...yet I couldn't help feeling that the end of the show left things in quite a lonely, empty place for several characters. But anyway, thank god it's all over at least!
> 
> Nerdy Side Notes:
> 
> Mentioned Selyse's old ladies (my own creation) in part 1, but here's a refresher! 
> 
> \- Donella "Nella" Bar Emmon is the younger sister of Durum, Lord of Claw Point. In ASOS, Duram is fifteen and described as "fat and feeble" by Alester Florent. Sworn to Dragonstone, the Bar Emmon sigil is a leaping blue swordfish on fretty silver on white. 
> 
> \- Larissa "Lissa" Velaryon is the elder sister of Monterys, the six year old Lord of the Tides and Master of Driftmark. Their father was the "handsome" but proud Lord Monford, who died at the Battle of Blackwater. House Velaryon is of Valyrian descent, and its members often have Valyrian features, such as silvery blonde hair, purple eyes, and pale skin. Also sworn to Dragonstone, their sigil is a silver seahorse on sea green.
> 
> \- Also mentioned was Korina Florent, who I've made the second daughter of Ser Colin Florent, who is the younger brother of Alester and Axell. She is sister to Delena and therefore also aunt to Edric Storm. Korina and Delena also have two younger brothers: Omer, who is a maester in service to House Oakheart, and Merrell, who is a squire at the Arbor. As we all know, the Florents are known for their prominent ears. Their sigil is a red-gold fox's head encircled by lapis lazuli flowers.
> 
> \- Also have to credit the bit about sewing and women to Louise Erdrich's Four Souls - wrote down that little excerpt ages ago and thought it fit so well here, just tweaking it slightly. Check her out. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this chapter :)
> 
> Reviews, as always, are very much appreciated!
> 
> Cappy x


	4. Run Cried The Crawling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had a sudden burst of inspiration to revisit this 'verse :) Not much Stansa in this chapter, instead it mainly focuses on that dark, complex head of Stannis', as well as certain future events starting to take shape...
> 
> (Disclaimer: Don't own anything, special indebtedness to asoiaf and GRRM)

He was moving, directionless, continuing on towards the hope of some distant dawn. From ridge to ridge, he climbed and clambered, paying no heed to the storm that pursued him, the snow around him swirling, new-fallen and deep. As a young man, new to the island and bitter with all his fresh resentments, he would stand by the black seashore and watch the waves soughing in and out, imagining himself to be somewhere else: a different coastline, a different life. But now he was heading away from the sea. Away, with the snow steadily falling, his footsteps becoming lost as soon as they were made.

            He often thought there was too much time here. That this place was sick with it. Haunted by it. Time didn’t leak away as it should. There was nowhere for it to go and nothing to hurry it along. On and on he might keep going and nothing would change, nothing would alter. Cold hands scraped bloody against unseen rocks, the red getting lost in the snow, but still he would not feel it.

            Close now, the Dragonmont loomed, its fire raging; the shadowy ghost of a giant. But there were no ghosts here, not truly, save the one that lived inside of him. Inside the heart of a godless man. Inside the heart of a motherless, fatherless, brotherless child. Until his footsteps disappeared. Lost and forgotten. Or never there at all. _I was never there at all._

            Stannis woke then with a jolt from a sleep he’d never meant to have; stiff-necked in his chair and the solar’s fire now burnt down to mere embers. It was night still: absent was the squawking of seabirds to signal the advent of morning; no light save the moon’s issued forth from the chamber’s solitary casement. _I shall be found dead at my desk one of these days_ , he thought wearily, rising with aching joints and sleep-stiffened limbs.

            He moved to stand before the hearth, the last vestiges of its heat feebly curling round him, like smoke from an extinguished candle. In this near darkness, the room felt close, the walls pressing in. For the briefest moment, he felt a flicker of fear, as though he was a child again, afraid of what he could not see, but then the feeling faded. Though still he turned to look round the empty solar, peering into all its black corners, as if searching for something, but for something inside himself. For something he ought to feel, but could not.

            He used to seek her out, the Red Woman, to soothe him to sleep, to keep the terrors at bay, to quell this uneasiness. But that was before. Before the Blackwater, before Selyse, before a hundred other things that now plagued and shamed him. He fixed his gaze back to the fire, his hand reaching for the poker to stir it back to life. It happened like this, the dreams, the disquiet that came with them. Their frequency had worn away their most cutting edges, but sometimes it still took him by surprise. Though perhaps it should not have, for pain and self-loathing buried deep is never wholly gone. It is like burying a seed: for a season it may stay hidden in the dark, but in the end, it will always grow.

            And yet, perhaps there was no use trying to justify himself or his choices. Not when so many other things needed to be done. It would do no good now to explain. It would weak to be anecdotal. It was wise to conceal the past even if there was nothing to conceal. A man’s power, a _king’s_ power, was in the half-light, in the half-seen movements of his hand and the unguessed-at expression of his face. _It is no easy task, to hide oneself away. But then one’s duty never is._

            The scrape of the door’s latch lifting broke through the solar’s silence, though he did not turn to see who had entered. He knew who it would be. _I might think of her only fleetingly, and yet that is enough to summon her to my side._

“Do your dreams still plague you, my lord?”

            The low timbre of her voice seemed to snake through the near darkness towards him, wrapping around him and pulling his gaze towards her. Illuminated only by the candle in her hand, Melisandre appeared to him almost apparition-like, as though at any moment she might slink back into the shadows with otherworldly ease.

            Resolutely, he turned his face back to the fire. He did not wish to look at her. Though heart-shaped and unblemished, it was not a soft face, any more than her body was truly soft. She was a woman of strong lines and high bones, and that made for a good face and an attractive one, but beneath that hard, so hard. What made her striking was her hair and her carriage, for she stood as straight as a spear and her hair fell to her waist like a cascade of fire. It was a sharp beauty that snared men like salmon caught in a basket trap. It had snared him too, though now he hoped he might have slipped free of her.

            “You do not answer.” Her voice was closer now, coming closer still. “But I know that they do, I see the weight of them hanging about you, my Lord. Let me help you.” He felt the heat of her hands coming to rest on his shoulders, her lips moving to purr in his ear: “Let me help you as I used to.”

            The nearness of her crushed him, burned him, like being held by the sun. He could very well imagine how it would be were he to give in to her; were he to reach for her; press his cold skin to the fiery heat of hers. The temptation to do so still lingered within him, to feel it again, that oblivion, because he hadn’t been himself then. Never himself. He was Azor Ahai, the Prince That Was Promised, the _King._ The man others hoped him to be. _Hope._ It is the frailest of words.

            He turned to regard her, the heat rising up his neck as she moved to clasp his face between her hands. The grain of her lips seemed now to rest a mere hairsbreadth from his. _She thinks she has me._ He felt the fabric of her robed hips bunch beneath his fingers, caught beneath his tightening grip. With one decisive push, he propelled her backwards, her feet almost stumbling in surprise.

            “I have no need of you in that way. Not anymore,” he ground out.

            It did not take long for her to right herself, for her spine to straighten, for her eyes to narrow, the red jewel at her throat glowing ominously. His gaze left hers to look purposely at her forgotten candle, flickering away where she’d placed it on his desk. He wanted rid of her, did not wish to face her. Silence can ask all the questions, where the tongue is prone to ask only the wrong one. _Is there no difference between sacrifice and murder in your eyes? I might murder myself for your cause and still you’d call it justly done._

            Between them, the silence deepened, like a fall of snow, accumulating second by second, flake by flake.

            “I hope to see you at tomorrow’s nightfire,” she said at last. “You have been absent from them for too long, my Lord. If you’d attended you would know by now that Joffrey Baratheon is dead.”

            He could not help but look at her then, searching for the truth in her eyes.

            “I swear to you, your Grace. I saw him die and heard his mother’s wail.”

            “Your flames are full of tricks,” he responded darkly, uncertainty rising within him like a tide of seawater. “What is, what will be, what may be…you cannot tell me for a certainty.”

            “Three is three, your Grace, and he is the third.”

            “I can count, woman.”

            “And yet you cannot believe.”

            “I find it harder and harder to believe you these days,” he bit out harshly, standing rigid with thinly supressed anger; “what actions you deem necessary, what sacrifices you say I must make.”

            “It is not what _I_ say, but the Lord’s choosing…”

            “And I suppose the end justifies the means? But what if there never is an end?” Even to his own ears he sounded desperate; a man made up of two opposing forces—what he must be and what truly he was—waging a war within him. “Don’t you see? All we have is means.”

            She watched him warily. Perhaps a flicker of disappointment flashed in her eyes, he wasn’t sure; disappointment at his weakness, his reluctance to do what she thought must be done. _Aye, Edric Storm is just one boy. But one boy can be enough to damn a man—to damn me._

            “You run away from what you know to be right, my Lord,” she said at length; “from _what you are._ That is why the nightmares come. To deny them is to invite madness. To accept is to control.”

            With a swish of her skirts she made her leave from the chamber, though she left the door open. _An invitation to follow, no doubt._ With a sigh, he walked back to his desk to stand before the candle, still burning steadily. He brought his hand to his mouth, wetting his finger and thumb. The flame died out with a hiss. With only the light from the hearth to guide him, Stannis made for the open doorway, till standing within its arch he paused briefly, indecision momentarily seizing him, before then resuming his step and going on his way.

            If he was surprised to find Ser Davos in the Chamber of the Painted Table at such an hour, he made no outward show of it. Instead, he merely looked to his friend with tired eyes and asked the question he knew he surely must ask:

            “Is it true? Joffrey is dead?”

            “Yes,” the Onion Knight replied, stepping forward from where he was stood by the large table; his shadow stretched long across it like a ship’s mast. “Your nephew is dead.”

            “He was not my nephew.” As he spoke his voice was uncharacteristically soft, as though hushed by the knowledge of so many sleeping bodies, yet to waken, yet to lose themselves amidst the castle’s dark corridors. “Though for years I believed he was.”

            “He choked on a morsel of food at his wedding feast.”

            He frowned at this answer, for this was a strange death, strange in that it was decidedly mundane, owing more to bad luck than villainous intent.

            “It may be that he was poisoned.”

            He nodded absently at this more likely explanation. He then moved to walk along the great, ornate table from which the chamber got its name, past Oldtown and the Arbor, up towards the Shield Islands and the mouth of the Mander. “Weddings have become more perilous than battles, it would seem…” Almost without his meaning to, his mind wandered to the sad Stark girl, imagining her sleeping soundly in her Dreamer’s Spire, safe and sound, at least for now. “Who was the poisoner?” he inquired after a beat, regaining his focus; “is it known?”

            “His uncle, it’s said. The Imp.”

            He ground his teeth. “A dangerous man. I learned that on the Blackwater. How did you come by this report?” His gaze left the table so he could look purposely at his Hand, dark eyes searching, all thoughts of nightmares and orphaned maidens now gone from his mind.

            “The Lyseni still trade at King’s Landing,” Davos answered, before pausing and offering him a wry smile: “Salladhor Saan has no reason to lie to me.”

            “I suppose not.” His gaze drifted down once more as he ran his fingers across the table. “Joffrey…I remember once, this kitchen cat…the cooks were wont to feed her scraps and fish heads. One told the boy that she had kittens in her belly, thinking he might want one.” His voice was measured as he spoke, though that did not mean he was not unsettled by this sudden recollection, far from it. “Joffrey opened up the poor thing with a dagger to see if it were true,” he continued in a low voice; “when he found the kittens, he brought them to show his father. Robert hit the boy so hard I thought he’d killed him.” He lifted his hand from the table and scrubbed it wearily across his face. “Dwarf or whoever, this killer served the kingdom well. They must send for me now.”

            “We cannot be certain of that, your Grace. Joffrey has a brother.”

            “Tommen,” he said the name grudgingly.

            “The Lannisters will want to hold onto power. They will most likely crown Tommen and rule in his name.” His Hand spoke almost apologetically, yet it was the truth nonetheless, and for that he thankful.

            “Tommen is gentler than Joffrey, but born of the same incest.” He made a fist, felt the nails bite against his palm. “Another monster in the making. Another leech upon the land. Westeros needs a man’s hand, not a child’s.”

            They were silent for a moment, until Stannis spoke again, slowly and with his eyes cast down: “The Lady Melisandre wishes for me to sacrifice the boy, to wake her stone dragons…what say you?”

            “You speak of Edric Storm.”

            “Yes.”

            “You can’t. He is gone.”

            “Gone?” His gaze shot up, sharply pinning onto the other man like an arrow cast from a bow. “What do you mean, gone?”

            “He is aboard a Lyseni galley, safely out to sea,” replied his Hand softly, yet nevertheless firm in the meaning of his words.

            His king’s eyes were dark blue bruises in the hollows of his face as he stared back at him. _How could this have happened? How has this come to pass?_ “The boy was taken from Dragonstone without my leave? A galley, you say? If that Lysene pirate thinks to use the boy to squeeze gold from me—”

            “No, this was my doing, sire. And even if I should wish to bring him back, I cannot. He is out of my reach, and out of _her_ reach as well.”

            Stannis stalked over to the window to stare out into the night. _Edric Storm is gone. Spirited away for his safety._ Outside, the sea was unusually calm, the moon above reflected upon its still waters like a silver coin, so bright that one might wish to reach out and take hold of it. But you could not. No, it was just as beyond his grasp as Edric now was. _All her talk of sacrifice has come to naught. And yet how I have agonised over it…_

            “I raised you up from dirt, Davos,” he said at last, sounding more tired than angry. “Was loyalty too much to hope for?”

            “Four of my sons died for you on the Blackwater. I might have died myself. You have my loyalty, always.” His Hand paused then, evidently weighing his next words with careful consideration: “Your Grace, you made me swear to give you honest counsel and swift obedience, to defend your realm against your foes, to protect your people. Is not Edric Storm one of your people? One of those I swore to protect? I kept my oath. How could that be wrong?”

            Stannis gripped the stone windowsill, knuckles turning white as he frowned, brow heavy. _I know this, I do. It was not my wish. This has never been my wish._ He stared purposely ahead, eyes fixed on the water as he spoke: “I never asked for this crown. Gold is cold and heavy on the head, but so long as I am the king, I have a duty…Sacrifice…is never easy, Davos. Or it is no true sacrifice. The Red Woman would tell you as much if she were here.”

            “But she is not here, it is just you and I.” He heard him approach, felt the other man’s gaze upon his face. “Old friends, just as Edric is your daughter’s friend, the Lady Sansa’s friend. _Your brother’s son._ ”

            Stannis released a stuttering breath, shoulders starting to sag.

            “There’s much I don’t understand,” Davos admitted. “All her talk of prophecies and visions…I have never understood and I have never pretended elsewise. I know the seas and rivers, the shapes of the coasts, where the rocks and shoals lie. I know hidden coves where a boat can land unseen. And I know that a king protects his people, or he is no king at all.”

            “Am I unworthy of the name, then? Have I fallen so afoul of all your expectations?” When he turned to face Ser Davos, his eyes held within them a pit of desolation. “Must I learn a king’s duty from an onion smuggler?”

            “No, my Lord, only hear me now, for the sake of the onions I brought you, and the fingers you took.” He watched, perplexed, as Davos fumbled inside his cloak and drew out a crinkled sheet of parchment. It seemed such a thin and flimsy thing. “All king’s Hands should be able to read and write. Maester Pylos has been teaching me.”

            Davos moved to smooth the letter flat against the table, and then gestured for his king to follow him to the fire, so that he might benefit from its light. Stannis numbly did so, standing beside him as the other man briefly squinted at the tiny crabbed letters, before passing the letter to Stannis to read for himself.

            “To the five kings,” he read silently, frowning over the words. _Not a recent missive then, and besides that wholly inaccurate. There can be only one, the rest usurpers._ “The king beyond the Wall comes south. He leads a vast host of wildlings. Lord Mormont sent a raven from the Haunted Forest. Other birds have come since, with no words. We fear Mormont slain with all his strength.” He paused, suddenly realising what he was reading, turning the letter over in his hands. He saw that the wax that had sealed it had been black. “This is from the Night’s Watch?” he spoke aloud, his alarm steadily building.

            “Aye, your Grace, it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They're heading to the Wall babeyyy :) How might this impact Sansa, I wonder? ;)
> 
> Nerdy Side Notes:
> 
> \- 'Dreamer's Spire' is just a little invention of mine, named after Daenys Targaryen, also called Daenys the Dreamer. Daughter of Aenar, it was her prophetic dream which led the first Targaryens to leave Valyria and head for Dragonstone. (Mentioned this in part 1, but thought I'd bring it back as a refresher).
> 
> – Also, special credit goes to two specific Davos chapters from ASOS: Davos V and VI, which helped me with the contents of the letter from the Night's Watch, as well as the confrontation over Davos sending Edric away. Though hopefully it's clear that in this AU Stannis responds a little differently to the latter issue, compared to canon.
> 
> Comments, as always, are very much appreciated.
> 
> Cappy x


End file.
